


Coin Flipping

by faradze



Category: Naruto
Genre: Baby's First Fanfic, Gambling, Gen, Kotetsu and Izumo are a singular character divided into two halfs, philosophical conversations, the anonymous ANBU is actually yamato
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-31
Updated: 2018-10-31
Packaged: 2019-08-11 09:04:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,464
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16472621
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/faradze/pseuds/faradze
Summary: A newly inaugurated Tsunade's interview process for new government lapdogs and personal lackeys is derailed by unprofessional inebriation and zero-sum gambling.





	Coin Flipping

**Author's Note:**

> Fully ripped off the opening scene from Rosencratz and Guildenstern are dead because I like the idea of the background characters in Naruto watching the events unfold with complete detatched bafflement. Might be a series, who knows...

"Heads."

 

Cold determination had settled on Tsunade's face, and even as the coin tumbled with a bright clatter on the floor her expression did not waver. She leant forward on her legs to pluck the coin from the ground

and flicked it at Kotetsu's head. It flew like a bullet. He caught it out of pure survivalism, and nervous bark of laughter escaped his throat when he examined the red welt left on his palm. Izumo chose to stare out the window as the Hokage reached into her cleavage to brusquely adjust her bra and take a swig of booze, and acknowledged the way the formal grid of the inner designation of the village gave way to winding alleys and hidden turns built under cheaply constructed tilework like a mosaic of hastily governed decisions. The winow was ajar, and the humid night air only added to the stifling tension to the room.

 

His back was against the wall, and he was trapped between Kotetsu's casual invasion of his personal space and a stack of wax-sealed mission scrolls splattered with water, grime and the occaisional streak of gore. Izumo felt increasingly anxious. The sake had left a sour residue on the back of his tongue, and the way it had coagulated made his throat click when he swallowed. He fiddled with the empty bottle. His cheeks were flushed with the tell-tale sign of inebrity, and when he pressed his fingers to his face he could feel them radiating heat. He had to accept that his sobriety was long gone, but it was a fact he accepted it with resignation and regret. He'd indulged too much, partly by the Hokage's lead and partly by Kotetsu's heckling. He wanted to go home, had felt that it was time to leave hours ago. Izumo could not in good consciousness let his friend gamble away his formal relations to authority while said authority deigned it acceptable, in her imposing drunken splendour, to prey on the brash nature of an unsuspecting Chuunin without, at the very minimal, his meagre supervision.

 

Kotetsu aimed a sharp grin at the Hokage. The Hokage pursed her lips, and a muscle in her bicep twitched involutarily. Izumo silently pressed his skull back against the wall, and with the spin of his head merrilly colliding with the nauseating dread in his gut, he resigned himself to the inevitable.

 

The game was simple. A pile of coins, only loose change, sat between the two, and each took turns at flipping them, one by one. If it landed heads, Kotetsu was allowed to keep it. If it returned tails, Kotetsu had to pay three coins back. By all odds, the Hokage had the advantage and should have been able to create a profit. It was the expected rate of probability, and there was no process to bluff or cheat your way out of the laws of nature.

 

Kotetsu flipped a coin over his knuckles, and then spun it with his thumb.

 

"Heads."

 

Izumo, against his better intuition, opened a new bottle and swallowed down another mouthful of sake. He silently mourned the loss of his own perception of reality. 

 

Tsunade picked up a coin, aimed it with careful consideration, and flicked it at Kotetsu's ear. He twitched, and it bounced off the wall with a loud ping, rolling to a stop by the folds of Shizune's robe. As her personal aide and inhibitor, Izumo felt vague affront, and slight jealousy, that she had chosen to opt out of this debacle by falling to the allure of unconsciousness. Shizune's power of being able to temper the Hokage was an underappreciated one, but when looking at the strands of hair plastered to her forehead and her lips shiny with drool Izumo felt in that moment that she had taken on more of the Hokage's bad traits than the Hokage had taken on Shizune's better ones.

 

"Heads."

 

The Hokage's eyes grew flintier with every loss. Izumo worried for Kotetsu's bodily integrity - Kotetsu had no such reservations, and pulled him into a brief, crushing side hug that felt more like a cage than an embrace. His hand was hot, and Izumo felt its impression linger on his shoulder like a misting of warm blood.

 

Kotetsu flipped a coin.

 

"Heads."

 

The Hokage flipped a coin.

 

"Heads."

 

Here, a silent battle waged underneath the surface of the one-sided massacre between Kotetsu's and the Hokage's luck - and the two sides were Izumo's beliefs, and Izumo's situation. Izumo's belief was so - everything happened in accordance to the natural laws of the world, and these laws could be devised by uncovering their framework through knowledge. Knowledge was everything - it meant the difference between life and death on the battlefield, it meant the difference between the continual survival of governing systems, and the continued establishment of traditions. The shinobi world ran on the economy of knowledge, and it was common knowledge that the laws of probability occured evenly and unobstructed across all events. It was this quality that he held close to his heart that enabled his position as a Proctor - his diligence in analysing and examining the upcoming genin gathered from across the continent created valuable information about other village's strengths, weaknesses, teaching aptitudes and bloodlines. The world could be desconstructed down to its rules - if you learnt the rules, you could survive.

 

Izumo's situation was so - there had been over a hundred coin tosses, and every single one had come up heads. His inner rationale railed against this. The dissonance broiled in his gut. He felt deep, abject despair.

 

Kotetsu flipped a coin.

 

"Heads," he snorted lightly, "Oi, Zumo, how about we buy some more drinks with this prize money?"

 

_You son of a bitch,_ Izumo thought as the Hokage's eyes zeroed in on his face like a shark to bloody water. His heart pounded sluggishly as his nervous system tried and failed to shock his alcohol addled brain back into focus.

 

"First you take my booze, then you take my coin? I expected better from two dignified members of this fine village," the Hokage closed her eyes, "Perhaps not. Things sure have changed since my time."

 

"Lady Tsun-" Izumo started.

 

"No! Don't fall for her sweet talk, she's playing to your weaknesses!" Kotetsu hissed, his breath glancing across Izumo's cheek, "Hokage-sama, Izumo here may be a fine lapdog of the establishment, but I will not fall for your... your poor attempt at cunning. I won these coins by your rules, fair and square. Luck favoured my hand today."

 

Izumo vibrated with nervous energy. The Hokage let the seconds tick pass, and the hairs on Izumo's arms raised as he felt immense chakra swell in her body.

 

"Fine!" she declared, "A new round. Tails, you pay me five."

 

"Deal," said Kotetsu.

 

"Aren't you bored?" it slips out before he can stop himself, "I mean, you can only win so many times before it stops being exciting. Where's the suspense?"

 

"What are you talking about?"

 

"Y'know, what's the score?" Izumo asked. He had lost count long ago, as his mind struggled to wrap itself around the sheer montony of the uncomprehensible phenomenon happening in front of him. He glanced at the Hokage - she watched them both with an unreadable expression in her eyes, but her posture no longer sent a flood of fear through him.

 

"One hundred and twenty to love."

 

"One hundred and twenty-two, thanks. So... the laws of probability propose the a coin is just as likely to fall on tails and it is on-"

 

"Heads." Kotetsu finished, flipping the coin and reading it. The Hokage steepled her fingers like a temple.

 

"Yes, so, it doesn't seem like a very incredible thing, like it's not something you'd bet on... well... but..." Izumo pinched the bridge of his nose. "This is nonsense! The laws of averages mean that the coin should land on tails just as often! It's a - a rule of nature."

 

"I have," the Hokage said, drawing her spine up straight, " _never_ won a bet with money. Nature be damned."

 

"The Legendary Sucker," intoned Kotetsu quietly into the mouth of his bottle. Izumo motioned to cover his mouth, but missed and knocked the bottle. A few drops spilled onto the carpet, but it couldn't be seen among the badly bleached bloodstains left by precoscious Jounin with more talent than common sense about medical urgency. Izumo wrinkled his nose, but refused to be distracted by a few germs.

 

"Oh, that's why?" Izumo said, frustrated. "You've just never won a bet?"

 

"Did you piss off a strong shinobi? Are you cursed?" Kotetsu asked, sounding more fascinated than he had any right to be.

 

"Surely you've won something, like, a wager, right?"

 

"Is it a ninja techinque? A secret one?"

 

"Not even 'oh, I bet fives bucks Shizune won't forget my - my - my... fuck it, bathouse itenary' kind of thing?"

 

"Never," the Hokage leant back, and downed the rest of her bottle in one go. A drop of condensation rolled down her wrist, and Izumo was reminded just how easily she could crush his bones if she so wished.

 

"A hundred and twenty two," Izumo despaired, more to himself than to anyone else.

 

"A hundred and twenty _to_ _love,_ " Kotetsu corrected.

 

"I heard you the first time, dear," Izumo said.

 

The room filled with a silence, undercut by the faint sounds of the village nightlife. Kotetsu adjusted the strap across his nose, frow burrowed. The Hokage seemed amused, but Izumo felt annoyance and anxiety swimming together in his chest. The very laws of nature lay scattered on the floor, and he was the only one that seemed to be acknowledging this. He tried to calculate numbers in his head, but he only got as far as trying to imagine the equation before giving up as the numbers bled together. Despite this, he assured himself that it was a very, very small probability. Infinitisimely small.

 

"Well, let's make a new record," Kotetsu said. "How high can it go?"

 

"Really? That's all you wanna think about here?" Izumo snapped, "This is - this is unnatural. Do you have no concerns?"

 

"You're too concerned," Kotetsu flipped a coin, and grinned when it settled on heads.

 

Izumo snatched a coin from the pile in frustration. He flipped it. Heads. He tossed it under his arm, fumbled, barely snagged it and shook it in his hands before rolling it like a dice. Heads. He picked it up, whipped it at the opposite window and winced as it shattered the glass and disappeared into the night. He hadn't intended to do that. He had enivsion something with a lot more controlled ricchochet.

 

"That's coming from your pay, Kagane," the Hokage said calmly, but a twitch in her eyebrow belied her tone.

 

"Kamizuki," Kotetsu corrected. "I'm Hagane."

 

"Same difference," the Hokage said.

 

There was a beat, and the coin whistled back through the hole and straight into the Hokage's awaiting palm. Izumo spotted a glimpse of a porcelain mask and suddenly felt quite embarassed as he realised he was drunk in front of the elite. He then rationalised it by remembering that the ANBU has definitely seen worse things, and had probably performed worse missions. A healthy dose of unprofessional inebriation paled in comparison to covert assassination and foreign geopolitical interference, he nodded to himself.

 

The Hokage flipped the coin.

 

"Heads," she said, and flicked it to Kotetsu.

 

The ANBU operated with utmost discretion. They wouldn't be bound to a unrelenting sense of obligation to watch out for an idiotic drunk friend perform feats of mathmatical miracles.

 

"A lesser shinobi would be pushed to question his place in nature," Izumo said miserably, "I'm dreaming, right? I'm willing this to happen, because it's happening in the privacy of my mind, which I can control. I'm just spinning a coin where there is only one outcome, as an atonement for a past I don't remember. Or!" he snapped his fingers at Kotetsu.

 

"Or?" Kotetsu asked, humouring him.

 

"Divine intervention. Against Lady Tsunade - my apologies - and thus this village. Which means that since, uh, there is a fate being demonstrated, it means that this village is fated to be a demonstration of fate," he stopped, confused. "I mean, there is a single path. We could probably divine it with coin."

 

"Divine it with coin? Like, pay for a fortune teller?" Kotetsu ribbed, elbowing Izumo in the side.

 

"Or," the Hokage intervened "it is simply a matter of the coin being just as likely to land on heads as tails and it should come to no surprise that it does just that each individual time."

 

"But - the law of averages -"

 

"No buts! Only a lesser shinobi would be pushed to question his reality over chance."

 

Izumo gather his chakra and peform a half-hearted _kai_. Kotetsu assisted him and slapped his shoulder with a chakra infused palm, flooding his nerves and forcing a yelp out of him as his chakra buckled. Kotetsu's winnings remained unchanged, so Izumo was forced to relunctantly accept reality.

 

"Besides," the Hokage continued, "the law of averages states that a good outcome is just as likely as a bad outcome. So, I await the day that my bad luck turns and I reap what has been sewn."

 

"Can we even say if luck is good or bad? Bad luck-" he pointed at the Hokage, then pointed to Kotetsu, "Good luck. Same situation. It depends, right? From where your vantage point is."

 

"Fortune favours the brave, yes," Kotetsu said, spreading a hand to indicate his growing wealth.

 

Tsunade barked out a laugh, "If you consider that measly pile of coins a fortune then you must truly be a coward in disguise! By that logic I've met criminal scum with more bravery than every shinobi in this godforsaken village. Besides.."

 

She leant in close, "...Do you take me for a coward, Hagazuki?"

 

"He's wrong, Lady Hokage!" Izumo cut in, "I mean, you wouldn't consider that fat bastard Gatou to be brave. And his fortune was the biggest of them all."

 

"Gatou died at the hands of those he cheated," Kotetsu pointed out. "He only got rich because he was brave enough to threaten others."

 

"Gatou only proves my point," the Hokage said, "He was fortunate because he was damn fucking lucky, because _business is luck_. Then the balance was restored. All those poor bastards down on their luck in wave, and one man with far too much of it. It was always going to end in blood, that's just basic economics."

 

"Ahhh," Kotetsu said, "Karmic banking. I like it."

 

"We rely on karmic banking," the Hokage said distantly, "Shinobi are only employed in order redistribute the wealth that is gathered by luck."

 

"All those lost kitty-cats, pawns in the cosmic game..." Kotetsu sniggered, "Rescued by their genin benefactors..."

 

"But... Doesn't that scare you? Of all this luck catching up to you?" Izumo asked the Hokage. He was struck, very suddenly, by how much weight her memories must carry. She wore her skin like a suit, altering it to change to her desires, but beneath that was an individual who had seen wars rise and fall, who had watched genocide and countless murders.

 

"Why should it? I would welcome it. It's about damn time something in my life went my way." the Hokage aimed the coin on her hand carefully, and closed an eye. "Life is shit and then we die. Might as well take advantage of everything I can get. My luck will turn, eventually. Someday, I'll get a tails." She flicked so hard that it neatly sliced the neck off the last bottle of sake with a small clink. It rebounded, and embedded itself into the wall. Izumo re-ordered his thoughts. It seemed that a long life was also a life tempered by nihilism, not necessarily by wisdom.

 

Kotetsu focused on putting his feet beneath his body, and wobbled over to retrieve it. It was imbedded too deeply to remove, so he simply bent, over-balanced, caught himself on the wall, squinted, and said -

 

"Heads," Izumo said.

 

"How'd you guess?" Kotetsu mocked surprise, and Izumo placed his head in his hands and moaned. Kotetsu was going to be insufferaby smug for days now.

 

"Fortune favours the foolish, I think," Izumo said bleaky.

 

"Don't insult me like that!" Kotetsu said.

 

"You are a fool! You think that winning some loose change gives you fortune!" Izumo said, "I'm a fool for enabling you."

 

"Enabling me how?" Kotetsu said, "You haven't done anything."

 

"Exactly! Argh - I mean," Izumo said, "We are the fools because everyone takes us for fools. We're proctors, but everyone treats us as a benchmark, people to overcome, and we're the fools for that."

 

"Only the elite become proctors!" Kotetsu protested.

 

"Yeah, the elite Chuunin. The real elite become Jounin! We - we're - What is the sum of a man, but the cul-min-ation of his re-pu-di-ation?"

 

"Reputation?"

 

"We have the reputation of fools," Izumo spoke louder as Kotetsu opened his mouth, "HENCE, we are the fools."

 

The Hokage scooped up the remaining coins and unceremoniously flung them at Kotetsu's face. There was a hollow thud as one glanced off his forehead and landed in Izumo's lap.

 

"We're all fools, idiots," the Hokage said with finality, "Just a bunch of fools governing the actions of other fools, so we can gain just enough peace time to fuck some fools and populate the new generation of dim-witted bastards. Get over it. Only the lucky amount to anything in this life."

 

"Heads, heads, and..." Kotetsu said, attempting to grope around Izumo's crotch but got his hand slapped away instead. Izumo tried to flick the coin upwards and catch it between his teeth, but it bounced off his front incisor. Kotetsu leaned forward as it rolled to a stop.

 

"Heads," Kotetsu grinned, "Lady Hokage, it comes with my deepest apologies, but I'm afraid -"

 

"- so am I," Izumo muttered.

 

" - that it just hasn't been your night. That's another head for your downpayment."

 

"Get out of my office," she said coldy, "Both of you! Take that blood money out of my sight."

 

"I'm simply collecting your karmic dues!" Kotetsu said."I'm doing you a favour!"

 

"I apologise for the remarks," Izumo said, "we'll be taking our leave now. Thank you for your gracious generosity."

 

He pulled Kotetsu with him, who had not yet quite finished scrambling to gather all the loose change on the floor, and, blind-drunk leading the blind-drunk, stumbled out of the office.

 

* * *

Izumo woke up facing a ceiling with familiar peeling plaster and water stains. Kotetsu's place. His throat smarted, and he could only conclude that he must have gotten terribly drunk last night. He turned his head, and winced as his skull throbbed. A flask of water appeared in front of him, and he accepted it gratefully, gulping down half of it in one go.

 

"Thanks, 'Tetsu," he said, handing the flask back.

 

"You're very welcome," said the ANBU operative in front of him, screwing the lid back on the flask, "my purpose is to serve."

 

Izumo let out a squeak as his brain caught up to him.

 

"Ah," said the ANBU, his deep voice clashing oddly with the almost cute cat mask he was wearing, "my apologies for scaring you, Kamizuki-sama. I'm here to bring a message to you and your partner."

 

He handed a thin scroll to Izumo. Izumo accepted it gingerly.

 

"Congratulations. It's an honour to be selected. You should be very proud."

 

Izumo was reeling. _What the fuck happened last night?_ he thought desperately.

 

"Um," he said intelligently, "Excuse me?"

 

Cat leaned in to whisper conspiratorily, "Between you and me, I think the Lady Hokage values, ah, engaging conversation over perfunctory decorum."

 

"Wait," Izumo said, "perfunctory decorum?"

 

"Yes. It means formality and tradition only repeated out of general routine," Cat supplied helpfully, "I should take my leave."

 

"If you think so." Izumo had never heard an ANBU say more than three words. Maybe this one was lonely.

 

Cat seemed to be hesitating. He shifted his weight from foot to foot, and fidgeted with one of his pockets.

 

Sheepishly, he brought out a coin, and, with Izumo watching in complete bewilderment, he flipped it. It bounced on the floor, and rolled to a stop by Izumo's discarded jacket.

 

"Tails," he said, disappointed, "I guess this is another situation where I remain an observer."

 

Izumo stared. Cat nodded sagely, "'But only a lesser shinobi would pushed to quetion his place in nature.' Thank you for your wisdom, Kamizuki-san."

 

Izumo nodded, a blank smile on his face, "Okay."

 

_Have I met this guy before?_

 

"I'll be seeing you," Cat said, and Izumo could almost hear an unspoken _but you won't be seeing me._ On that note, Cat made a ram sign with his hands, and unceremoniously sunk through the floorboards.

**Author's Note:**

> Comments are welcome! This is my first time uploading any work, so tell me what you think! Constructive criticism welcome :)


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